US anticolonial identity required a distinct language masking its imperial ambitions.

Evidence

The United States, however, could not simply accept in toto the language of the old empires. Its own anticolonial history meant that there were voices in the political sphere that resisted the mantle of imperialism. Even though it entered the imperial arena with the Spanish-American War of 1898, the “issue of self-rule was so deeply emplaced in the national psyche,” Sidney Lens writes, that “an anti-imperialist opposition … began to form.” The Anti-Imperialist League, founded in November of 1898, included not only figures like Mark Twain but also prominent mainstream politicians. This trend of opposition in the mainstream was mitigated over the course of the twentieth century; nevertheless, it gave rise to an image of the United States as being a different kind of world power—different, that is, from the “old-style imperialism” of Europe. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 142

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘different kind of world power’ myth is a foundational myth worth contrasting with Grosfoguel’s and Selod’s accounts of US post-9/11 state power. — connects to: US support for decolonization served its own imperial aims — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 207; Western scholarly discourse about the Orient was entangled with colonial domination — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 206; The US needed Islam as a foil to define itself as Western — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 154 (+3 more)
• SEED: Essay angle: the Anti-Imperialist League as a case study in how empire gets disavowed even at its founding moment — a template for reading later US foreign-policy justifications.

Broader Connections

• US support for decolonization served its own imperial aims #expands (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 207
• The US needed Islam as a foil to define itself as Western #exemplifies (0.60) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 154
• Western scholarly discourse about the Orient was entangled with colonial domination #exemplifies (0.55) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 206
• Colonial political grammars shaped what agents could say, not necessarily think #expands (0.50)